Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Philadelphia: 21 priests suspended

    A grand jury last month indicted three priests and one lay teacher on charges of rape, assault and other felonies related to minors, mainly in the late 1990s.

  • Newt Gingrich considers secularism “elitist”

    “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.”

  • Governor of Illinois repeals death penalty

    “We cannot have a death penalty system in our state that kills innocent people.”

  • A scary theocrat

    But can the tension between religion and state always and at any time be resolved with a bias in favour of the law?

  • Sean Carroll on modal logic and the ontological proof

    The OP is perfectly logical — that is, the conclusions follow inevitably from the premises. It’s the premises that are a bit loopy.

  • CFI’s Living Without Religion campaign

    Too many people think atheists are miserable or savage or both.

  • The opposite of engaging

    Paul Sims did an interview for the Catholic Herald, and wants to know what people think. (At least he did; the post is a couple of weeks old now.)

    Ed West sets the scene for Herald readers.

    Last month two groups of people met in a church in central London to discuss gay adoption, abortion and religious schools. On one side were representatives of Catholic Voices, on the other a group from the Central London Humanist Group.

    The point, says Paul Sims of New Humanist magazine, was “to experiment with the idea of Humanists and Catholics sitting down and engaging with each other on contentious issues in a cordial manner”.

    Yes but (I’ve said this before, I’m sorry for the repetition) Catholic Voices are not just “Catholics” – they are a self-appointed PR group formed to defend the Vatican’s views:

    a bureau of Catholic speakers able to articulate with conviction the Church’s positions on major contentious issues in the media.

    Talking to them is not the same thing as talking to a generic or random group of Catholics; it’s talking to a group whose purpose is to defend views chosen and handed down by other people. It’s hard to think of a category of group it is more pointless to talk to when as Paul said

    the point, as I explained in a piece in the current issue of New Humanist, is to experiment with the idea of humanists and Catholics sitting down and engaging with each other on contentious issues in a cordial manner.

    Catholic Voices won’t be engaging with humanists on the issues. They will be defending the church’s positions on those issues, which is the opposite of “engaging.”

  • Theocrats come to Harvard

    The April 1-2 Social Transformation Conference ostensibly aims to employ “faith-based principles to better our society.”

  • Campaign Against Witchcraft Accusations in Akwa Ibom State

    A campaign to Prevent the Abuse of Children Today (PACT) in Akwa Ibom, also known as Operation Enlightenment, is underway in Eket Senatorial distirict in Akwa Ibom state. The program sponsored by Stepping Stones Nigeria aims at enlightening the people and getting them to know that child witchcraft is a myth and a form of superstition, and that the prophets and apostles who claim to cure or deliver people from witchcraft are fraudsters and criminals. The campaign team will tour all the local government areas under the senatorial zone. In each LGA a drama will be staged in two schools. 130 t-shirts, 1000 stickers, 500 posters, 800 calendars are to be distributed across the district. So far we have toured 5 local government areas – Oron, Okobo, Urue Offong Oruko, Udung Uko, and Mbo – and reached out to around 10,000 students and teachers. In each LGA we visited, the drama group – the Oron Cultural Troupe – performed in two schools and PACT campaign materials were distributed to students and teachers.

    [media id=24815 title=”Leo’s drama” width=”150″ height=”150″ ]

    On February 28 we toured Oron LGA. The drama group performed at Infant Jesus Secondary School, Mary Hanney Secondary School. Over 3 thousand students turned out to watch the performance. Some asked questions and shared their ideas and thoughts about witchcraft-related abuses in their communities. The PACT team paid a courtesy visit to the paramount ruler of Oron, HRH Odiong Akan.

    [media id=24816 title=”Leo drama 2″ width=”150″ height=”150″ ]

    On March 1 The campaign team toured Okobo LGA. The drama was performed at Methodist Primary school Nsie and Comprehensive Secondary School Amamong. Over 2 thousand students watched the performance. We later paid a visit to the paramount ruler of Okobo, HRH Owang Ibok, and the village head of Nsie community. While in Nsie, we visited the local police station where two children who allegedly confessed to be witches were detained. The family kept them at the police station for fear that they could be lynched by the members of the community. We met with the head of the police station who confirmed the incident. The matter was reported to the Commission of Inquiry set up by the government of Akwa Ibom state to verify claims of witchcraft accusations. The Commission has invited me to testify before it on Tuesday, March 8.  On March 2, we toured Urrue Offong Oruko LGA. We performed at Ubudong Communiy Secondary School and Comprehensive High School Okossi. Over 2000 students watched our performance. We later paid a courtesy visit to the paramount ruler of the LGA, HRH Amasi.

    [media id=24817 title=”Leo drama 3″ width=”150″ height=”150″ ]

    On March 3 our team was at Udung Uko LGA. The drama was staged at Community secondary school Edikor and Community secondary school Udung Uko. Over a thousand students from the Community were there when we performed. While we were in Edikor, a man from the community, Victor Effiong Dickson, reported to us that his daughter, Esther, was given witchcraft by a woman in the community and that the daughter was responsible for the death of her sisters. The man had to withdraw the girl from school for fear that she could be killed. I plan to use his case as additional evidence before the commission on Tuesday. Many people we met believed that children can be infected with witchcraft through food or biscuits. Many children have been tortured to confess that they got their supposed witchcraft powers through food or snacks. At the end of our tour we visited the paramount ruler, and gave him a pack of PACT materials (he was not onsite so we left the materials with his wife).

    On March 4, the PACT campaign team was at Mbo LGA. We performed at Community Secondary Ewang and at Ebughu Grammar School. Over 2 thousand students watched the performance, asked questions and received campaign materials. So far the campaign has been a great success. The 5 LGA we have visited fall under Oron Nation where witchcraft related abuses are said to be rampant. Children alleged to be witches suddenly disappear. They are reportedly killed, lynched or thrown into the river. The drama was rendered in the local (Oron) dialect and was well received by the students. The students clapped and cheered during the performance. The message was drummed home to all who watched the drama that child witchcraft was a myth and that the so called prophets who claimed to ‘cure’ witchcraft were fraudsters and criminals.

    In a school in Nsie (Okobo LGA), some teachers said we could make all the noise we liked about stopping the abuse of children in the name of witchcraft, but that children could actually be witches. No doubt I know that there were some people who watched our drama and still went away with similar impressions. But one thing is clear, the drama challenged the students’ belief in witchcraft, and provoked them to re-examine it. Our performance emboldened  them – to challenge  or report to the police peddlers of the ancient myth – in a manner that has never been the case in the history of Akwa Ibom state.

    Leo Igwe in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state.

  • This is totally alien to the spirit of Tahrir

    Well how sodding depressing.

    Women hoping to extend their rights in post-revolutionary Egypt were faced with a harsh reality Tuesday when a mob of angry men beat and sexually assaulted marchers calling for political and social equality, witnesses said.

    …

    The demonstration on International Women’s Day drew a crowd only in the hundreds to Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the popular revolt that drove President Hosni Mubarak from power. Gone, organizers said, was the spirit of equality and cooperation between the sexes that marked most of the historic mass gatherings in the square.

    As upwards of 300 marchers assembled late Tuesday afternoon, men began taunting them, insisting that a woman could never be president and objecting to women’s demands to have a role in drafting a new constitution, witnesses said.

    That’s no good.

    “People were saying that women were dividing the revolution and should be happy with the rights they have,” said Ebony Coletu, 36, an American who teaches at American University in Cairo and attended the march, as she put it, “in solidarity.”

    The men – their number estimated to be at least double that of the women’s – broke through a human chain that other men had formed to protect the marchers. Women said they attempted to stand their ground – until the physical aggression began.

    “I was grabbed in the crotch area at least six times. I was grabbed in the breasts; my throat was grabbed,” Coletu said…Egyptian women say that sexual harassment has long been rampant here and that they grow up expecting to be fondled in public by men with impunity.

    That’s no good that’s no good that’s no good.

    The “revolution” is worthless if that’s the kind of world it settles for. It’s worthless if it’s content with treating half of its people (or any of them, but especially half of them) as objects of contempt.

  • Cairo: women’s rights marchers report attacks

    A mob of angry men beat and sexually assaulted women marching for political and social equality, witnesses said.

  • Sally Feldman on shiny new anti-feminism

    Catherine Hakim of LSE recently caused a furore with her “Feminist Myths and Magic Medicine,” in which she condemns moves towards gender equality.

  • The Catholic Herald interviews Paul Sims

    CH: “Not only did most people warm to the Holy Father but his opponents often seemed shrill and intolerant.” Discuss.

  • Soldiers punished for not attending Xian concert

    Two soldiers said they felt pressured to attend the Christian rock concert as part of what was billed as the “Commanding General’s Spiritual Fitness Concerts.”

  • NPR head resigns in wake of sting video

    A different executive told people “posing as Muslim philanthropists” that Tea Party supporters were racist.

  • His hand slipped

    Jen Phillips pointed out another item from Wally in October 2009. A spot of quote-mining.

    What PZ wrote:

    “I have zero sympathy for intelligent people who stand before a grandiose monument to lies, an institution that is anti-scientific, anti-rational, and ultimately anti-human, in a place where children are being actively miseducated, an edifice dedicated to an abiding intellectual evil, and choose to complain about how those ghastly atheists are ruining everything.

    Those people can just fuck off.”

    What Tom Johnson chose to quote:

    “I have zero sympathy for intelligent people who stand before (religion)…Those people can just fuck off.”

    (Yes, we saw that quote again a few days ago, in another “oh sweet jesus the new atheists” jeremiad.) Wally said oh gosh sorry, I took it from another source. Sigmund (yes, our friend Sigmund) said really, because I’ve searched for it and can’t find it, Wally said how dare you, I said I was sorry, grow up. Yes really.

    Two apologies from me should be more than enough to clear up the ambiguities for others reading this post. It’s done, Sigmund. I made a mistake by posting a second-hand quote without checking its original source (there’s a third!). Grow up.

    Wally also, in the very act of “apologizing,” said “but I could find plenty of quotes of PZ bashing religion.” Yes really. Twice.

    I wonder if he’s busy doing that even now, inside his own spooky head. “But it is all completely totally true, even though I did make it all up.”

  • Waving the saffron flag

    Meera Nanda is critical of myths about the timeless Hindu nature of yoga.

    By and large, the US yoga industry does not hide the origins of what it teaches. On the contrary, in a country that is so young and so constantly in flux, yoga’s presumed antiquity (‘the 5,000-year-old exercise system’, etcetera.) and its connections with Eastern spirituality have become part of the sales pitch. Thus, doing namastes, intoning ‘om’ and chanting Sanskrit mantras have become a part of the experience of doing yoga in America.

    I’m reminded of Kelly on The Office, dressing up in a sari and piously saying “namaste” when she was applying for a Minority Training Program, which was funny precisely because the rest of the time she’s hyper-American and the opposite of pious.

    One would think that yoga’s popularity and Hinduisation would gladden the hearts of Hindu immigrants.

    Wrong.

    The leading Hindu advocacy organisation in the United States, the aforementioned Hindu American Foundation or HAF, is hardly beaming with pride. On the contrary, it has recently accused the American yoga industry of ‘stealing’—even ‘raping’—yoga by stripping it of its spiritual heritage and not acknowledging its Hindu roots.

    And so another bogus grievance is born.

  • Wendy Doniger on the real roots of yoga

    Yoga is a rich, multi-cultural, constantly changing interdisciplinary construction, far from the pure line that its adherents often claim for it.

  • BHA census campaign ads deemed too “offensive”

    For railway stations, on the grounds that they could “cause widespread and serious offence.”

  • Desk chair tourism

    Do you play with Google Earth enough? I’m not sure it’s possible to play with Google Earth enough. I’d forgotten to install it until fairly recently, so I’m still excited about it…Then again I doubt that I’ll get less excited about it as time goes on.

    Check out the Amalfi coast some time. Or Capri. Or Norway and those notorious fjords. Or Vancouver. Or Stockholm. Or Paris. Or Edinburgh. Or Cornwall.

    At the moment I’m working on the Yorkshire Dales. I took a little break there about an hour ago. I went to Gunnerside, in Swaledale; found a very local but blue-lined road partway up a moor to the west of Gunnerside, and just traveled along it pausing to do a 360 every few yards. Staggering!